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Being skinny confers no advantage when it comes to the risk of dying suddenly from cardiac causes, a study presented today at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session has found.According to the authors,  non-obese heart failure patients – including overweight, normal and underweight patients – had a 76 percent increase in risk of sudden cardiac death compared to obese heart failure patients. Normal and underweight patients showed a startling 99 percent increase in risk for sudden cardiac death compared to obese patients.

The high-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Central Chile last month closed one of the two remaining seismic gaps at the South American plate boundary. After the quake in Concepción, the remaining gap in the north of Chile now holds potential for a comparable strong quake and is, thus, moving more and more into the focus of attention. The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has been monitoring this gap with the Integrated Plate Boundary Observatory (IPOC) in Chile since 2006, and now the duties will be taken up the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad Catolica del Norte.

In a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from The Wistar Institute suggest that mice that lack the p21 gene gain the ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue. The team says their findings provide solid evidence to link tissue regeneration to the control of cell division.Unlike typical mammals, which heal wounds by forming a scar, these mice begin by forming a blastema, a structure associated with rapid cell growth and de-differentiation as seen in amphibians. The loss of p21 causes the cells of these mice to behave more like embryonic stem cells than adult mammalian cells

Until recently, it was thought that white dwarfs could not exceed what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit, a critical mass equaling about 1.4 times that of the Sun, before exploding in a supernova. Since 2003, four supernovae have been discovered that were so bright, cosmologists wondered whether their white dwarfs had surpassed the Chandrasekhar limit, dubbed the "super-Chandrasekhar" supernovae.

Scientists have an emerging interest in lectins, naturally occurring chemicals in plants, because of their ability to halt the chain of reaction that leads to a variety of infections.Now, researchers from the University of Michigan say they have found a potent inhibitor of HIV, derived from  the lectin found in bananas that may open the door to new treatments to prevent sexual transmission of HIV.In laboratory tests, BanLec, the lectin found in bananas, was as potent as two current anti-HIV drugs, T-20 and maraviroc, currently in clinical use. Based on the findings published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, BanLec may become a less expensive new component of applied vaginal microbicides.

Writing in Nature Biotechnology, an international team of scientists say they have  transferred broad spectrum resistance against some important plant diseases across different plant families. The findings could provide a new biotechnological solution to engineering disease resistance and may help  improve food security as a result.Breeding programs for resistance generally rely on single resistance genes that recognize molecules specific to particular strain of pathogens. Hence this kind of resistance rarely confers broad-spectrum resistance and is often rapidly overcome by the pathogen evolving to avoid recognition by the plant.

New archaeological evidence recovered at Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Southeastern PrePyrenees, Catalunya, Spain) suggests that 'modern humans' first appeared on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition, according to researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The research, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, also supports the hypothesis that there was neither interaction nor coexistence between humans and Neanderthals during the period. Cova Gran is a large shelter covering a total surface area of 2,500 meters squared,

Environmentally friendly products are everywhere, but consumers aren't purchasing them because they care about the environment, according to a new University of Minnesota study. "Green purchases are often motivated by status," says Vladas Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "People want to be seen as being altruistic. Nothing communicates that better than by buying green products that often cost more and are of lower quality but benefit the environment for everyone."

A new genus and species of carnivorous amphibian from western Pennsylvania, Fedexia striegeli, provides the earliest widespread evidence of terrestrial Vertebrates, say researchers from Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The fossil skull, found in 2004 near Pittsburgh International Airport, was recovered from rocks deposited approximately 300 million years ago during the Late Pennsylvanian Period.  The rocks where Fedexia was found are nearly 20 million years older than the localities of its fossil relatives, suggesting that the expansion and diversification of this group occurred much earlier than had been recognized previously.  The findings are detailed  in the Annals of Carnegie Museum

If you're trying to pick winners for this year's NCAA basketball tournament, ignore a team's seeding, which is statistically insignificant after the Sweet Sixteen, a new Journal of Gambling Business and Economics study reports.The paper suggests that picking the higher-seeded team to beat a lower-seeded opponent usually works only in the first three rounds of the tournament. Once the tournament enters the Elite Eight round, a team's seed in the tournament is irrelevant.

Babies may be born with a predisposition to dance and find music - specifically, rhythm and tempo - more engaging than speech, according to a study of infants aged between five months and two years old.While predisposition towards music may be innate, researchers are unsure why it developed in humans. "One possibility is that it was a target of natural selection for music or that it has evolved for some other function that just happens to be relevant for music processing," the authors write.For the study, 120 infants listened to a variety of audio stimuli including classical music, rhythmic beats and speech. Their spontaneous movements were recorded by video and 3D motion-capture technology and compared across the different stimuli.

Researchers writihg in Proceedings of the Royal Society B say they have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision.  They say they have determined which genetic 'gateway,' or ion channel, in the hydra is involved in light sensitivity.  Hydra are simple animals that, along with jellyfish, belong to the phylum cnidaria. Cnidarians first emerged 600 million years ago.Complex traits with components of individual evolutionary histories are always more difficult to understand but a gene called opsin is present in vision among vertebrate animals and is responsible for a different way of seeing than that of animals like flies. The vision of insects emerged later than the visual machinery found in hydra and vertebrate animals.